Here’s the thing: the Lumia 900 is a really good phone. It’s the first major device out of Microsoft’s relationship with Nokia and just like the original Xbox’s early drastic price cut to compete with PS2, the two Windows Phone partners launched the new phone at $99.99 to get the phone (and its platform) out to millions of new customers. The problem is, halving the price after two months is a little scary.

In another Microsoft trope, in which they promote a product before dumping the platform its based on (see: Halo 2 and said original Xbox), the Lumia 900 is the last major Windows Phone release before the firm’s big “Apollo”/Windows Phone 8 update this fall, the problem lying in the fact that none of the current Windows Phones available today will get this major update. Sure, Windows Phone 7.8 is being released to complement the Lumia 900 with interface tweaks and other slight changes, but the fundamental changes coming to the platform won’t be there, like the new core powering Windows Phone based on Windows NT, or the score of new apps that will take advantage of it.

It seems like a tragedy that the Lumia is being reduced so early, as if Microsoft’s trying to get rid of a really good thing before its time. That Microsoft and Nokia knew the Lumia was an evolutionary dead-end and pushed forward with it anyway is also sad. The move to Windows Phone 8 is going to be a hard one.